


how can you tell it from the bad

by postfixrevolution



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Linear but non-continuous narrative, Post-TLJ, Redemption, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, happy belated birthday to me this is my gift and also my post-tlj therapy fic, kylo is there to haunt her about each one, questionable force bond physics, rey has no impulse control and makes some questionable (dark) decisions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 09:50:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13478898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postfixrevolution/pseuds/postfixrevolution
Summary: “I didn’t ask for you,” she mutters numbly, eyes glued to the plane of skin where his scar disappears beneath his shirt. Kylo is silent for a long moment before responding.“And yet,” he whispers, “I heard you anyway.”..Rey and Ben continue to be haunted by each other's presence. It should be as enemies, but there's something different the air between them every time the Force bond plunges them in perfect, echoing silence.





	how can you tell it from the bad

**Author's Note:**

> It took me two years and TLJ to finally get my TFA-Reylo ass to write something for these two! I hope to write more for them in the future, too. ^^
> 
> No beta, so forgive me for any grammar/spelling mistakes!
> 
>  
> 
> Title inspired by [_Good Grief_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpb1gJyMKIs) by Dessa. The entire story isn't based on it, but I find that some lines fit Ben or Rey really well!
> 
> -
> 
> _i want that good grief / the one that heals me / that leaves me clarified by fire_

It’s the most unfindable place in the galaxy, but Rey finds herself there a second time, with the remains of the Resistance at her side. 

The instant Chewbacca touches down, she slips away from her unloading companions and makes her way back to the cursed hole at the base of the island. The smell of saltwater and rotting seaweed are as putrid as she remembers, and a terrifying siren call resonates in the Force around her, beckoning her in once more. 

Rey feels herself grow sick at the memory, and with fingers trembling and teeth clenched hard enough to shatter, she rips the cave apart and watches it crumble pathetically in on itself. The insistent pull in the base of her chest diminishes, but an uncomfortable tightness in her stomach takes its place. 

Dust mixes stickily with sea spray, latching onto her like a second skin, and Rey closes her eyes and reaches out. She waits for the Light to seep into the space left by the cavern, only to feel nothing. The once-Darkness leaves a void in its place, the Light that once waited patiently at its borders edging away at the newfound emptiness in the rubble Rey has created. 

“ _ No _ ,” she breathes hurriedly. Her heartbeat rockets as the warmth of the Light begins to fade away, and she physically grabs at it, lunging forward with closed eyes. Rey catches her foot on a rock, careening into the crushed stone with honey-brown eyes wide open. Multiple sensations flood her system at once: sharp rocks shredding her flesh, hot blood trailing rivulets across her skin, and the suffocating emptiness in the Force that she has made. 

Pulling herself up to her hands and knees, she screws her eyes shut and reaches out desperately. “Come back,” she murmurs to nothing. “ _ Please _ .” Something brushes against the edge of her mind, and she grasps at it without a second thought, gasping when an icy cold suddenly envelops her. 

Across a perfect silence, her voice echoes. So does his.

“Rey.” 

Rey looks up and sees dark brown eyes, the color of the soil on Ahch-To. They stare at her with a reverent wonder, dizzily stuck between wondering why she was here and wanting to drink in her presence and commit every feature to memory. Kylo Ren stares at her with everything but the harshness she remembers from their battle in Snoke’s chamber, and her heart rate spikes. 

“Was that you?” he asks, brows furrowed in confusion.

She rolls back onto her haunches, allows herself to take in the sight of him. He is in plain clothes, a tunic and leggings not meant for a man at war, but in the darkest shade of obsidian. It’s disorientingly simple, and he sits eye level with her, legs folded as though he had been meditating. Rey can’t bring herself to imagine him doing so successfully.

“That shift in the Force,” he continues slowly. “I felt it.” He looks at all of her, but Rey knows he lingers on the broken lightsaber at her side and the shallow cut that leaks blood along the curve of her cheek. “I felt you.”

Rey swallows. 

“I didn’t ask for you,” she mutters numbly, eyes glued to the plane of skin where his scar disappears beneath his shirt. He is silent for a long moment before responding.

“And yet, I heard you anyway,” he whispers. His tone is that breathy, dizzy-reverent one again, the one that sends a shiver down her spine. When her eyes fly up to meet his, Kylo is gone, and Rey stares out over a pile of broken rocks and into the sea. 

* * *

Rey avoids the temple area like it is diseased. Even from a distance, she can feel everything that happened on the day Luke Skywalker died, catching the tail ends of flashbacks and feelings that were never hers. She knows more than she should about how Luke passed on, and she tries not to let the intrusive non-memories drag the sting of unwelcome tears to her eyes.

Luckily, the hut Luke used to live in holds much less Force presence, even if most avoid it out of respect. She sees Leia slip in sometimes, at dawn when the rebels are still relishing in the temporary grace of late mornings and silence. She rouses with the sun on habit, instinct forcing her to be early prepared for another grueling day in the Jakku heat. By now, the motion is pointless, but she relishes in the quietude and uses it to meditate, reaching out into the Force just as Luke had shown her. She tries not to think about the latter as she does. 

Today, she is up just before sunrise, tumultuous dreams of a cruel master’s hand that was not hers plaguing her sleep. She couldn’t understand how Kylo had lived so long under that beast. She can’t understand why he still lives under that dead man’s shadow now. 

As she blinks away the last vestiges of sleep, she tiptoes out of her little hut, peering across the stone pathways to Luke’s old home. The door is slightly ajar, and Rey scuttles stealthily toward it, wondering if she might find the General sitting inside, staring at the painstakingly folded robes. The door creaks as she pushes it open, lopsided from being haphazardly replaced after Chewie had torn it off its hinges. Rey steps in to find it empty and perfectly silent. In the middle of it all, Kylo stands alone.

“He lived here, didn’t he,” Kylo says. It’s not really a question. Rey can feel that he already knows. “I can still feel his presence here. Weak, but undeniable.”

“Not now, Ben. Not here,” she growls. The name has become a force of habit on her lips, but the angry twitch of his eye it causes fills her with a twisted sense of pride. She isn’t sure if that or the reminder of who he could have been hurts her more. “You’re the last person that deserves to be here.”

“Who’s to say I’m actually here?” he asks with a scoff, bending down to stare at the small crystals that hang from Luke’s walls. “I was reviewing star maps on The Finalizer before this. Your Resistance can’t hide forever.”

“Master Skywalker did,” she bites back childishly. “Your silly star maps won’t tell you anything.”

“You aren’t leaping at a chance to see your dead master again?” he repartees, just as mocking. The look on his face is harsh, brows contorted in barely controlled rage. “Just say the words and your entire Resistance will get an express pass.”

“He  _ loved  _ you, Ben.” His eye twitches again, coupled with a visible tightening of his jaw. His earthen eyes are icy as they fly over to meet hers. 

“That was his mistake,” he murmurs tightly.

“I thought you changed. You’re still a monster.”

Kylo huffs angrily, face contorting into a feral snarl. “Say it enough times, and it’ll become true.”

“I don’t  _ want _ it to be true!” she exclaims, grabbing him by the wrist. “ _ Ben _ .” His fingers curl into a tight fist, and she can feel his rage boiling at the sound of his name-- half at her, and half at himself for craving the word so hungrily from her lips. With a violent flair, he rips himself from her grasp. Rey doesn’t reach for him again. “You can still come back,” she intones, so soft that it barely echoes across their bond. “It’s not too late.” Kylo keeps his back to her.

“Oh, but it is,” he breathes. “You’d think after years waiting for dead parents in the Jakku desert, you’d learn. You can only fool yourself so many times, Rey.” 

Rey opens her mouth to protest, but nothing can force itself past her tight throat and she grimaces, turning her eyes toward the ground. She clenches her fists, too long nails burrowing into her flesh palms. Not a word comes to her mind that can bridge the ravine of their silence, and Kylo’s last words echo away into nothing. 

As sunlight begins to creep into the quiet hut, he is long gone.

* * *

She knows he is there when the comfortable crash of the ocean against the island’s edges cuts into nothing. One of them shifts, hard soles against rough ground, and the small noise echoes endlessly across the silence. Rey does not turn around to face him, but she still remembers every curve of his features, framed by firelight and inky shadow. Something tells her that peaceful expression does not rest on his face now.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” she mutters lowly. The echoes of her sentiment take their time to peter out into nothing, and neither say a word. Their bond is completely silent for a long moment before his answers.

“Yeah. Me neither.”

“Then close it,” she snaps, a scowl adorning her features. “Leave.”

“It’s not-- It’s not that  _ simple _ ,” he bites back, frustration evident in the harsh snarl of his voice. “The Force doesn’t want it, therefore I can’t. I know you can feel it, too. Do you really think I want to see you anyway?” Kylo scoffs, and Rey can imagine him wrinkling his nose in disgust, glaring daggers into her back. “You  _ haunt  _ me,” he mutters, and there is a shakiness to his voice that makes her insides quake. “That day on the Supremacy... If you had joined me, Rey, we could have had  _ everything _ \--”

She rounds on him, blaster directed point-blank at his head. Honey-brown eyes watch him step back, hands raised cautiously as he stares at the nose of her weapon. Reason indicates that it isn’t really there, but Kylo stays back despite that. His eyes shine not with fear, but with a smoldering blaze of challenge. He sees into her and he won't be surprised if she shoots him. The thought makes her stomach twist.

“We would’ve had  _ nothing _ , Ben,” she spits, fingers so tight around her blaster that her hand begins to shake. “Can’t you see there’s nothing left for you in the Dark Side? Snoke is dead! If anyone finds out it was you who murdered him, the entire First Order would demand your  _ blood _ .” With a sharp huff, she lowers her blaster, replacing it at her hip. “If you joined me,” she mutters,  “you could have had  _ everything _ .”

Kylo steps forward, feet crushing the small rocks that rest underfoot. It almost feels as though he is here, a sensation that is only doubled by the sudden aura of warmth that crawls over her skin as he grows near. He is warmth like the fire in her hut after plunging into the sea, urging her closer with a siren call that resonates in the Force inside of her. She can smell cleaning solution and solder from his end of the bond and wonders if he can sense anything similar from her.

“And if I only wanted you?” he breathes, voice hot against the shell of her ear. A shiver trickles down her spine. Her eyes slide shut as she swallows, and Rey shoves her blaster against his ribs before slamming her finger down on the trigger. 

The moment shatters, and galaxies away, Kylo Ren falls to his knees in an empty training chamber. He grits his teeth and his eyes burn.

* * *

"Here to shoot me again?" he jabs, a rueful scoff puffing past his lips.

"Here to give me another reason to?" she bites quickly back, nose wrinkled in annoyance. Rey glares at him. She fixates on his scar, not his face.

"Depends on your qualifications for a reason,” he responds simply. “Something tells me you're more than eager to point a blaster at me. I can see it in your eyes. And you call  _ me  _ vile."

"You  _ are _ ," she tells him lowly. 

In an over swooping motion, he leans down to her eye level. Rey starts, instinctually stepping back. He’s close, and she dares not to breathe the air that has been sighed out from his very lungs. Her heartbeat thuds in her ears, and Kylo’s amused scoff brushes across her cheeks, making her skin burn. Rey swallows, twitchy fingers hovering fretfully over her blaster. Earthen eyes flicker down to her tense hand, and a smirk curls up on his lips. She does not stare at them.

“But am I the only one?” he asks knowingly.

She is jolted back to the present moment, forcing her anxious fingers away from the blaster at her side. 

“We’re nothing alike,” she hisses through clenched teeth, taking a large step away from him. At this distance, she can finally breathe. “And I refuse to hear another plea for me to join you. You could say it a million times. I'm not leaving the Resistance." 

He stares at her with eyes the color of earth, as deep brown as the soil that bleeds out into gloriously green meadows at the edges of their island base. There is a searing heat to his intense gaze, and for that, Rey swallows the heartbeat in her throat, forcing her chin up higher in defiance. 

"I could teach you so much," Kylo murmurs, just loud enough for her to hear. It's tinged with a hint of wistfulness. "Everything Skywalker would have taught you. And more."

"I don't want your instruction!” she exclaims, shaking her head at the repetition of it. “Look where all that knowledge has left you now. You're the most hated man in the galaxy, Ben. Even your First Order has nothing but fear of you. You can’t deny it."

He scoffs, and whatever fire that had burned in his eyes transforms into ice. 

“And what about your precious rebels?” he snaps. “They don’t understand the power you have. They couldn’t possibly. Oh, they might not fear you now,” he tells her, shaking his head slowly, “but there is always fear of what you might become without a teacher.  _ Who _ you might become.”

Rey glares up at him, rising up to his unspoken challenge with indignation sharpening the bite of her words. “What? They’re scared I’ll end up like who? Like y--”

“Yes,” he cuts her off effortlessly, and Rey is taken aback by the suddenness of it. There is a scowl on his face, and he glares daggers into the wall behind her and the floor between them, but never at her. 

What fire she had flickers with uncertainty at the sight of him, at the sensation of a self-hatred that isn’t her own bubbling in the pit of one of their stomachs. It is a sad sight, so painfully similar to the unsure eyes and hesitant hand she had seen cast in warm firelight what felt like millenia ago. She feels something akin to pity rustle in the bottom of her stomach once more. 

“Like me,” he mutters bitterly. “Weak, unbalanced, uncontrollable--”

“ _ Human _ .”

He steps back as if she had struck him, wide eyes gawking at her. Rey is caught by surprise at her outburst as well, but she plants her feet and stares back nonetheless. She thinks about calloused fingertips pressed gently against her own.

“Those are human things, Ben.” Rey steps closer, honey-brown eyes trained steadily on his. For every step she takes forward, Kylo takes an unsure one back. When his back thumps gently against a wall, his breath catches in his throat and she feels his hot breath fan across the curve of her cheeks. He swallows thickly, and Rey wonders if his earthen eyes flickering somewhere just lower than her own was a trick of the light. She wets her lips in anticipation.

“They’re the makings of a monster,” he tells her shakily. 

She reaches out despite her better judgement, placing a careful hand against his cheek. Kylo’s breath catches, but his trembling stills at her touch.

“They’re the last things about you that aren’t.”

He stares at her mouth, and with a blink, he is gone.

* * *

Rain is just as common as sun on Ahch-To. Never had Rey dreamed of being so surrounded by water, as far as her eyes can see in every conceivable direction, and her dizzy wonder over the feeling of raindrops against her skin has yet to fade.

She had slept with the ghost sensation of being torn apart inside by Snoke, awakening with a roar of thunder and the feeling of crashing down against an unforgiving floor. The pouring rain is frigid and unyielding, but it washes ghost pains off her skin and her mind, and she swings her quarterstaff against invisible opponents in the thick of it, letting thoughtless instinct whisk her away. 

Lightning flashes, setting her rocky plateau alight, and she remembers her last words to a dead man. A strangled gasp tumbles past her lips, feet catching on rough ground and sending her careening onto her side. Tears sting in her eyes and as thunder crashes, silence cuts in. Even the feeling of rain barrelling down on her skin dulls to a fuzzy tingle. She sucks in a shaky breath and sees a gloved hand being offered to her. 

“Not this time, Ben.” Gritting her teeth, she ignores Kylo’s proffered hand and pulls herself painfully up to her feet. Rey turns her eyes up to find him watching her expectantly.

“Then when?”

She scowls. “You already know the answer to that,” she snaps. “You made your choice the moment you offered me your hand on the Supremacy. And I’ve made mine.”

“You could be so much more than a lonely rebel on the run.” He extends his hand further, stretching his fingers so she might fit hers between them.

“And I am,” she tells him firmly. “No matter what you may think!” She reaches for his hand, only to throw it unceremoniously aside. “You called me  _ nothing _ , Ben. Told me I had no place in this. You don't get to decide that!” 

His fingers curl into a fist, leather squeaking softly at the motion. Kylo lets the hand rest tensely at his side.

“You're not,” Kylo blurts. Rey’s honey-brown eyes harden. “You're not nothing.”

She exhales a disbelieving laugh, lips stretching into a rueful smile. “Not to you? You’ve already played that card, and it doesn't  _ fix _ anything.”

“You never  _ were _ , Rey,” he intones heatedly, and its intensity demands her attention. She glares up at him with her teeth pressed tightly together. “It's written on every part of you,” he breathes, softer. “The way the Force sings as it thrums inside and around you. That feral, beautiful way you swing your saber. You were never nothing.”

“Then  _ why _ ?” she challenges. “Why did you say it?” His gaze falls, but she does not look away.

“You know why,” he mutters, eyes downcast.

“I  _ don’t _ , Ben!” she intones, shaking her head in frustration. “You can’t keep doing this. We’re not books. I can’t keep reading you if you can’t tell me what you really mean.”

His eyes fly up to hers, and she is startled by how  _ haunted _ they look. 

“Is that it?” he scoffs, hollowly. “You can’t feel it? My head in yours, and yours in mine? There’s nothing to read, Rey; it’s all already there.”

She presses her lips together. “It is,” she tells him slowly. “But it means nothing, Ben, if you can’t say it to me out loud.”

He swallows, fingers curling anxiously into fists at his side. Rey watches him expectantly, and he keeps his eyes trained on the ground between them.

“You can feel it,” he sighs, “can’t you? There’s only you there, Rey.” He turns earthen eyes up to latch onto hers, staring as if he never intended to look away. “It's just you,” he murmurs, shaking his head as if he didn’t believe the words either. “You're stardust. You’re everything.” 

Her breath catches. Rey opens her mouth to ask him what he means, but her words are interrupted by thunder. Rain pours down on her once again, and it’s colder than she remembers.

* * *

The two shards of the kyber crystal set in Luke’s old lightsaber are beyond repair, but Rey pries them from the ruined metal body anyway. Separated, they are weaker, but even side by side, they can never be truly joined again. Wild black hair and earth-colored eyes spring to her mind at the thought, and she does her best to shove them away.

Even during the times when their Force bond stays dormant, desperate pleas and shaking hands plague her fitful dreams, leaving her with a suffocating pain in her chest when she wakes.

Last night was one of those nights, memories of fire and crumbling walls jolting her awake in a breathless, cold sweat as sunlight began to crawl in through the small cracks of her hut. No one was wandering about yet, as she expected, but the doors to Luke’s and Leia’s huts were both left ajar; she respectfully gives the stone structures a large berth as she drags her staff and broken saber down to the shore. 

Rey lets her mind go numb as she pries apart her quarterstaff to the rhythmic crash of Ahch-To’s waves. The two kyber shards sit peacefully in the sand before her, and she can feel the way they sing in harmony with the Force that fills her. It’s as much a siren call as that cursed, buried hole had been, and she sets her staff down for a moment, letting her eyes flutter shut as she listens to the low hum of the crystals. 

Their presence is warm, she thinks, and she reaches toward it. When Rey’s mind brushes against the edge of them, their heat floods her, and her eyes fly open with a gasp that echoes.

“Ben.”

Kylo sits somewhere dark, shadowy face illuminated only by the telltale cerulean glow of a holobook. In the low cerulean light, every feature on his face is exaggerated; the slope of his nose is severe and the ridge of his scar is haunting. His earthen eyes look pitch black, interrupted only by a rebellious streak of luminescent blue.

“I’d rather not do this right now.” 

“We’re doing it anyway,” she responds curtly. “Stardust and nothing.  _ Why _ ?”

He does not look at her. She wonders if it’s the contents of the holobook that distract him. Its contents are blurry across the bond, but the dark circles under Kylo’s darker eyes give him away. She tries to push it away, watching in soft awe as her fingers phase halfway through it, displacing it a scant few inches before her hand passes completely through. Kylo pushes it to the side himself, and the side of his face opposite to it falls into shadow.

“Oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen,” he rattles off. She looks up at him with a frown. “You’re made of them, and so are stars.”

“That’s not why.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I know that isn’t it, Ben.”

“If you know,” he begins, eyes flickering up, “then why keep asking?”

She opens her mouth, unsure of the words she intends to say. With a frown, Rey presses her lips together. 

“That’s what I thought,” Kylo continues. “You don’t have a reason.”

“You know  _ very  _ well I do,” she shoots back, glaring up at him defiantly. 

“Do you?” He inclines his head to better meet her gaze, and she squares her shoulders, staring resolutely back. Surprise flashes briefly across his features, and it disappears as he exhales, nodding slightly. “You do.”

“You think it’ll change things if I do,” he adds, half question and half accusation, brows furrowed at her like she’s a puzzle. “That the truth can save Ben Solo from the monster holding him captive.”

Rey frowns. “It’s not about salvation, Ben,” she sighs, shaking her head. Gingerly, she reaches forward, resting fingertips just between the ridges of his knuckles. He stares down at them. “And it’s not about monsters. You know the truth, and it hurts you to keep it inside. Why don’t you say it?”

“The truth?” he echoes, barking out a bitter scoff whose sharpness seems to catch them both by surprise. Her hand tenses against his. Kylo sucks in a slow, quiet breath, shifting his hand so he can trace restless circles across the back of her thumb with the pad of his. She does not keep track of how long the silence lasts, but notes that his touch is warm enough to want to get lost in.

“Everything was easier,” he says eventually, and it sounds breathy and unsure. “That’s why I called you nothing.” His gaze is directed downward, and something about it makes him feel so faraway. “I didn’t have this pain when you were still not worth a damn. I knew my place when  _ you...”  _ He pauses, turns glazed earthen eyes up toward her, and Rey has never seen him look so small. “When you had none.”

She scrutinizes him, tightening her fingers around his. He twitches anxiously as she does. 

“Your place...” she echoes, tilting her face in an effort to meet his downturned gaze. He turns away. “Ben, can’t you feel it? Your place isn’t with the Dark side anymore.”

“Is it?” he laughs ruefully. “I’m not sure if I know  _ what  _ my place is anymore. It might be no place at all.” Earthen eyes stare down at their joined hands, and suddenly, he shakes her away, letting her arm fall limply back before her. “That’s why I called you stardust, Rey. There’s stardust in every place. And in every place, I see you, too.”

Rey tries to reach out for him again. Her fingers brush against the glassy surface of the kyber crystals instead, and they burn with the exact same heat as his skin.

* * *

The Millennium Falcon is by no means a small ship, but with the rest of the Resistance piled into it, it sometimes feels so.

Rey has little to offer in the means of conversation, so she often sits in corner or in weapon’s bay, fiddling with pieces of her new lightsaber and the Jedi texts she had stolen away from Ahch-To. 

The climate there was too harsh for the rebels to set up a permanent camp, so they left as soon as soon as their spirits and bodies were able to stomach it. The chatter of her fellow rebels is muffled by the bay’s doors, but the life that fills every corner of this decrepit ship is undeniable. Rey smiles softly as she sits cross-legged on the floor, revelling in the energy around her. She lets the hum of the engines and the people lull her into a calm, and that makes her all more aware of the acute silence when it rises up like a tidal wave and swallows it.

Kylo stands before her, wooden saber in hand. She has to tilt her head to see him, but brings it swiftly down when she finds him topless, drenched in sweat. Her face burns. Across their bond, she can hear his heavy breathing. 

“Rey,” he greets her. She hates the breathiness of it.

“Do you do everything shirtless on your ship, or am I just unlucky?”

“I was training.”

“I can see that.”

“Can you now?” he asks, and Rey almost wants to look up to confirm whether or not he’s smirking at her. She can practically hear the silent laughter in his voice.

“I can,” she grits out past clenched teeth. She expects another snide response, flinching when the tip of his saber taps the underside of her chin instead. 

Kylo tilts her head up to look at him, and she finds herself unfortunately correct about the amused smirk that curls up at his lips. Rey exhales a shaky breath, swallowing thickly. His eyes stray from her own, trailing dangerously close to the lips that struggle to find steady breath, and the intensity of them makes her  _ burn _ . 

“ _ Ben _ ,” she begins warningly. She hates the breathiness of it, but it is enough to snap his gaze back to hers. He lowers his saber, and she forces herself to breathe as she leans on her new saber hilt to drag herself up to her feet. Kylo eyes it curiously.

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“In your hands. A saber?” His brows furrow in concentration as he stares at it. “It looks different.”

Rey steals a glance at him. His voice is level, but the way he stares at the mass of chrome and dark steel in her hands betrays a voracious curiosity. The corner of her lips pulls up into a small smile, half in satisfaction and half in amusement. With an expert twirl, she ignites the saber, grinning as icy blue blades erupt from either end. Kylo steps back in surprise, earthen eyes alight. Her heart swells at the sight.

“A saber _ staff _ , actually. The kyber crystal split in half. I made do.”

“Amazing,” he mutters, stepping closer to inspect it. “It suits you.”

“It’s familiar,” she tells him, twirling it languidly in her hands. Her soft smile is tinged with nostalgia. “I’ve held one of these my entire life.”

“So you have,” he comments. “Something tells me that fighting against you with this might make things even harder next time.”

The lazy spin halts, and Rey’s eyes fly up to his. She can see the way the saber’s cerulean glow paints his face in familiar, dramatic shadow and extinguishes it. 

“The next time doesn’t have to be against me.” Clipping her saber to her belt, she holds her hand out to him. “You told me you had no place before. It could be  _ here _ . I don’t want to fight you, Ben.” He stares holes into her proffered hand.

“Neither do I,” he whispers. Rey extends her hand further, stretching out her fingers so that he might fit his in between. He reaches for it, only to press the wooden handle of his practice saber into her palm. His fingers skim along the blade of it, stopping only to position it just over the center of his chest. “But we both know that the next time we see each other, it won’t be as allies, Rey.” 

Her fingers tighten around the hilt, knuckles turning winter-white from the force of her grip. She tears the saber from his grip, letting it clatter to the ground between them. Kylo stares at her with wide eyes, but she turns her gaze pointedly away.

“I liked this, you know,” she mutters. “The calm. The cease-fire.” Honey-brown eyes flicker up, just for a moment to glance at his face. “You.”

She sees his throat bob as he swallows, staring at her in a speechless awe, as if he half expected her to take it back. He steps closer, near enough that she can feel the heat radiating from every part of him, and it makes her skin feel uncomfortably warm. As Kylo grows closer, Rey feels her heart leap up into her throat. She raises her hands up in a makeshift barrier as he walks right into them, and the sudden feeling of his bare chest beneath her palms makes Rey  _ burn _ . 

They spring apart simultaneously, scarlet blossoming across both their cheeks, but the Millennium Falcon shudders out of hyperspeed before either can say a word. Rey isn’t sure what words she had in mind that die instantaneously on her tongue, but she forces them and the rapid sprint of her heart in her throat down with a thick swallow.


End file.
